Thursday, October 21, 2004

Pantagraph speaks glowingly of Huckelberry...

...but they endorsed Brady anyway in the race for the 88th state representative district. Their reasons were understandable: Brady, the Republican, has more experience, has more contacts, has a lot of enthusiasm. They did heap praise on the Green Party's Huckelberry, admiring his knowledge and balanced outlook on the issues, but at age 27, Huckelberry, they said, would be great for a lower office with the county or city. Of course, Huckelberry did try to run for a lower office not too long ago, but the Democrats pulled out all of their tricks and got him kicked off the ballot, so what are you going to do.
Here's what Huckelberry said in an email to party supporters:

Friends outside of Bloomington-Normal, I want to emphasize the importance of this editorial. I walked into the editorial board interview and it was obvious that they had no idea what to expect. I felt like they
expected me to talk about trees. When I started talking about Abraham Lincoln, how my grandparents were small business owners who always voted Republican, and where those values fit into where I come from and how I see many of them as fundamentally Green values, they were taken aback... and impressed. It would have been easy for them to deride mine as a fringe candidacy from a minor party. But even though they didn't give me an endorsement, they listened, and they liked what they heard.

At any rate, I'm proud of Phil for running and for knocking the socks off the Pantagraph's editorial board. Since there is no Democrat in this race, Phil will bring in a pretty big chunk of the vote, and if he can get the students out to the polls, he just might pull it off.